


If I Have Seen Further

by returntosaturn



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Alternate Timeline?, Creatures, Friendship, also, because it doesn't make any sense, just ignore the timeline in this, newt meets young hagrid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-23 16:43:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17083988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/returntosaturn/pseuds/returntosaturn
Summary: “Sometimes,” he started, searching for his words even as he went, “our lives don’t turn out as we’d expect… And sometimes the ones we love are hurt inadvertently by our mistakes, or the mistakes of others. But if we are careful to mend things, I find that most often, its better than I’d imagined."// Newt takes a teaching job at Hogwarts and meets young Hagrid





	If I Have Seen Further

**Author's Note:**

  * For [njckle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/njckle/gifts).



> Merry Christmas to the wonderful, lovely, talented njckle from your Secret Santa.
> 
> //
> 
> A few notes on the story....I had been working on this for...um...well, about a year. I would write a big chunk, and then put it back down, and so on. I could just never get it quite right, and honestly wanted it to be perfect. I'm truly really proud of it, or else I wouldn't be giving it as a gift.
> 
> The timeline doesn't really make any sense, I realize, because Tina and Newt would be well into their forties by the time Hagrid is at Hogwarts, and also McGonogall makes a cameo (wrote that before COG, so I'm the OG on anachronistic character cameos, even though she actually would've started at Hogwarts right after Hagrid was expelled, if I'm not mistaken).
> 
> Anyways, just take it as an alternative timeline, if you will. Time has no bearing here.
> 
> To say what I was really trying to say in this story, ti was important that all of this be happening at the same time, so I might've fudged some numbers.

_ September, 1945 _

 

The boy they’d hired on in the position was young, but held at great esteem by Dumbledore himself, and if there was any judgment to be trusted beyond all else, it was his. 

The letter Newt had received indicated that the boy was bright, kind, and exceedingly loyal to the school in a way not many would be able to rival. For all accounts, he sounded like a perfectly capable employee. 

But of course the letter was not just an informative missive between friends, cataloging changes since their last parting. Though trustworthy, Dumbledore almost always had another motive.

Over all these years, Newt had grown accustomed to deciphering the flowering language of Dumbledore’s correspondence to get to the heart of the matter at hand, and this was usually  accompanied by both the suspicion that he’d just been spectacularly duped and the fateful tug of just allowing it to happen.

The boy was orphaned, Dumbledore had noted, and a previous student of the school who’d been expelled only two springs ago. (It was upon reading this bit of information that Newt did conclude that he’d been swindled into this whether he liked it or not. Of course he would be considered best fit to foster the boy’s sensibilities back into him). The loss of both parents and the scrape of trouble within the only place he knew as home had left him glum and out of sorts, Dumbledore had said. Of course they would call upon Newt, another victorious drop out, to mentor him.

There was, Dumbledore insisted, actually quite a practical reason for Newt’s summons. As it happened—as things always seemed to  _ happen  _ where Dumbledore was concerned—there was a vacancy for Professor of Care of Magical Creatures. 

It seemed either suspicious or serendipitous that the two tasks coincided—the need of a mentor for the young man, and the post of a professor to be filled. But Newt had grown keen to these sorts of adventitious adventures. So keen that he knew he needed to lay out his own demands, lest he find himself swept up, heart and soul, without his own knowing. And so he agreed, under the condition that they not ask him to stay any longer than the semester.

He’d never considered himself a classroom teacher, and even the extravagant grounds of Hogwarts gave him a sense of claustrophobia after a time.

Not to mention his wife’s  _ condition _ . It was a term she loathed, and demanded he write out of his response. Instead, he cited that she was ‘expecting,’ a term that she happily ceded to. After years of missed chances, and after accepting that perhaps a child would never come, it certainly was a shock and surprise at her age, and something he deeply regretted to miss. If he should be absent for most of her pregnancy, he would not budge about being present during the child’s birth.

Now, Tina stood with him on the platform, at the flanks of a rumbling red steam engine he never anticipated he’d be boarding again.

She gave a big sigh and tried to look optimistic while he sorted out his trunk and ticket.

Since their marriage, she’d become a partner to him in more than ways that one, and him to her. There had not been one without the other for quite some time. It happened this way, by no one’s declaration. It just was. Even before rings were exchanged. Neither of them were the type to shy from a fight, so when the war had reached a peak, they were together hiding in damp, dark forests with dirt caked into the skin and knuckles white around their wands. When it had ended, they sought escape in traveling and discovering, and she’d taken on a role his publisher had insisted on for quite some time. An aide, an assistant, and—not endorsed by the publisher—a lover. There had been only a few goodbyes and see-you’s said throughout the years, but none for such a length of time as this. Not since the very first, when he left Port Authority that December that seemed so long ago now. Even then, she’d been the one to meet him on his side of the pond, armed and fierce and all business.

Now, as if time were reflecting back on itself, she stood there with steam winding about their heads, trying to hide her gleaming eyes.

She did not ask to be written weekly like a sweetheart. He did not offer to send her notice of his arrival, and neither of them spoke about plans for the Christmas holidays. Things were different now. Even if the distance was still there, there was a silent covenant that had seen them through a life made of battles and quiet travels and angry beasts. An unspoken word that shaped their lives as one.

There was no mistaking motives this time.

He reached over, smoothing his hands over her hair, blown to loose frizz by the steam billowing about the platform, until her face was cradled between his palms. His gaze flicked down to the happy roundness at her middle, just barely visible under her coat.

“Kiss me. I’ve got to hurry.”

She did, lingering a bit too long, perhaps gripping the collar of his robe in both hands to hold him there. Perhaps he gave her hand a squeeze, to remember how her slender fingers felt against his. Perhaps this was so, or perhaps not. For no one was left on the platform to witness their exchange, a state that fate seemed to happily find for them even after all these years.

-

The teachers gathered in Headmaster Dippet’s outer office while the students were being gathered and transported from the village. A spread of hors d'oeuvres and rich wine were served, a fulcrum around which the staff revolved while they greeted one another and herded new members about the room to be greeted and shook and clasped.

It was Newt’s least favorite activity in the world. If there was anything so close to animals at auction, he imagined this was it. He supposed he could not count it all bad, for someone he deeply revered was there to both subject him to the torture and lead him to its end.

Dumbledore, a little greyer than their last meeting but no less impressive than he always was, escorted him about and, Newt suspected, took great glee in his waning expression as people congratulated his book and fawned as those starstruck few seemed to do. The new Herbology professor even had the gall to bargain for the ingredients to the wart-shrinking draught he’d cited in his latest edition (as a cure to his Erumpent’s frequent skin condition. What squatty Professor Howlett wanted with it, he’d rather not know).

“You have proved a marvelous friend to me over the years, Mr. Scamander, and what are friends for but to relish in one another’s embarrassment every now and again?” Dumbledore chimed, giving his sleeve a pat once Newt was free of this particular exchange.

“Mr. Scamander,” Headmaster Dippet scrawled, stepping into their path. “Allow me introduce you to Rubeus Hagrid. He will be in your charge for these few months during your tenure.”

The boy—the word used to describe him thus far—was a head or three taller than Newt himself, dressed in frayed and hastily-patched trousers that hardly met his ankles, a sleeveless jumper over a wrinkled dress shirt with a slouching collar, and a plain pair of faded work robes that only served to double the apparent width of his shoulders. His dark, wiry hair was cropped short but fell over his forehead on its own accord, and one corner of his mouth was turned up in a nervous, uncomfortable sort of half-grimace.

“Very nice to meet you, Rubeus.” he said, gazing up at the boy’s portly face.

Until now, it seemed the boy was a little glum, a little bemused. But upon his greeting, Hagrid gave a friendly, if slightly uncertain smile.

“Mos’ people jus’ call me Hagrid, sir,” he murmured.

Dippet cleared his throat harshly, and Hagrid balked.

“Er…I mean…What I said was…Nice to meet you too, sir. Very nice to meet you.” His plump cheeks blossomed pink, and his mouth opened again in what was sure to be an eager spill of compliments and commendations, but he chanced a look at Headmaster Dippet’s expression and seemed to think better of it. He scrubbed a hand at the back of his neck, swallowing whatever else he’d desperately wanted to say, dropping his gaze back down to the stone floors.

Experience meant Newt recognized a muddled admirer anywhere, and nodded his pleasantries once more. “I’m sure we’ll get along quite well, Hagrid.”

“O’course, sir.”

Newt nodded, blinking a smile up at him before settling safely to the shadows, quite literally now, next to Hagrid’s hulking frame.

He waited until the other staff had become befuddled with other introductions and small talk, to turn once again to the boy looming timidly over him with slumping shoulders.

“You may call me Mr. Scamander, if you like. I find it much easier to be addressed by my first name, and I’m hardly a Professor, as I’m expected to call myself in this context, but neither of the two seem to be appropriate. Mr. Scamander will do just fine.” He nodded up to Hagrid who’d grown slightly bewildered.

“But you are a Professor, sir! The staff’s been buzzin’ about havin’ you aboard since they knew you was coming. Even if it’s just for a little while. And I’m honored, Professor, truly I am! Your book is one of my favorites, it is. Read it three times over, I have.” The boyish glint set back into his eyes, as the praises Newt had expected he’d bottled up only moments ago now spewed forth.

Newt bowed his head in a gesture of appreciation. “Thank you, Hagrid. Mr. Scamander, if you please. I insist.”

“Alrigh’ then, Mr. Scamander.” Hagrid tipped his head. His dialect made the same error some Americans seemed to make: inflecting the first syllable of his surname rather than the second. But Hagrid was proving such a receptive, affable young man that Newt made no motion to correct him.

The evening concluded with the heralded feast after a rather extended Sorting in which students and teachers were treated to a Hall-steeling hat-stall in the form of a whispy, unyielding, moon-eyed witch named McGonogall eventually sorted into Gryffindor.

Newt retired that evening, warmed by wine and the distinct feeling of being home, to his quarters. 

His books were already stacked neatly into their shelves, his teachers’ robes hung in a neat row in the wardrobe, a feathered mattress set with a down quilt all too welcoming. The castle was peacefully quiet, thrumming with the excitement and unknown of tomorrow’s work, and the cool mountain air laced with this anticipation lulled him to an easy sleep.

-

His classes began as he found most interactions with people began.

Painful.

Not in the sense of physical pain, though it was very near. Painful in the sense that he was pressed for words and cornered by the dozens of eyes that stared blankly back at him, and he never could seem to get through an entire set of lecture notes before class ended. If he wasn’t off on a story, he was lost in which details to exclude since his audience already appeared lulled to sleep.

And these were not regular people, but children. He’d always considered them easier to get along with than adults, more forgiving and gregarious. But he was beginning to think students in particular were the exception to this rule. They were a subspecies that children became on their way to adulthood.

One afternoon, after his class had nearly trampled themselves in a haste for the door, he resigned himself to stuffing papers into his case, gathered up the stasised Jobberknoll and Diricawl eggs he’d brought for size and weight comparison, and went about setting the tables and chairs back into three precise rows. 

He did not wish to grow embittered about being here. It was a wonderful place, with wonderful memories—some sad memories, too—and wonderful people, and a worthwhile mission. But he did miss Tina terribly; weekly updates by post were not enough. In only a few months time, their entire lives would be changed, and devoted to something else— _ someone  _ else. As honored as he was, as worthy as he considered this investment of his time towards the young man they’d given him charge to, he only wished he could get to know that other person...that little spark they’d all but given up on. And Tina… He’d never pressed her, and she’d never spoken outright about it, but it was obvious she was crushed at the thought that they would never grow a family. It was there in the way she would curl quietly into his side at night, setting aside her book to sigh into his shoulder. It was there when she played with her nephews at Christmastime. He tried to infer from her letters how she was faring emotionally, but he needed to  _ be  _ there. To grow with her...

The timid shuffle of boots on the weather floors drew his attention from his preoccupations, and he blinked up from his place in the middle of the classroom, halfway through pushing the last chair into its place.

Hagrid was there, hulking in the doorway, his silhouette nearly swallowing all the afternoon light streaming from the vaulted windows behind him.

“Hello, sir.”

“Hello, Hagrid.” He gave a amiable nod. “Was there something I could help you with?”

“Yes.” Hagrid’s large fingers twisted together. “You said at breakfast that you’d like take stock of the garden. You said you had an idea about why the turnips were coming up pink.”

“Ah, yes. The streeler. Let’s head that direction, and we’ll make a visit to Professor Howlett on the way to see if we can’t scrounge up a few tools. He owes me a favor after I traded him a particular potion recipe.”

-

One soggy, shriveled and florecently pink turnip root dangled from Hagrid’s fist, dripping wetly and bleeding a bright, sticky goo onto his polka dotted garden glove.

Newt grimaced.

“Yes well, we may need to lay the soil again. It looks like the infection’s gone too deep. It will choke out the new plants just as it did these. We’ll dispose of the sick plants into that wheelbarrow there…” He gestured with the handle of his shovel. “And do away with the rotten soil and fill it with new. Go on and start pulling.”

He went to shoveling away the old dirt, making way for the new to be tended. 

“Sir?”

“Yes.”

“Would it be easier...that is, I meant to say...Couldn’t we use magic?”

Newt grinned wryly. “Oh, certainly, if we wanted things to be simple. However, its a firm belief of mine that gardening is a chore best done by hand.”

And if grumpy old Howlett, who was stingy on even parting with a few wheelbarrows and spades, considered the school’s garden out of his jurisdiction as professor of herbology, well, then someone had to see to it. And that someone was to be Hagrid, who, as it happened, was wandless. 

The loose soil gone and vanished, and the ruined plants along with it, they began spreading new compost, a large sack of which Newt retrieved from his own case. When he levitated the great bulk of a repurposed feedsack up and over, through the opening and into fresh air once more, Hagrid was wide eyed, mesmerized at the sight, and Newt, balancing learnedly on the narrow ladder, half in and half out, thought he’d never seen anyone look so enthused with a sack of manure, and never would again.

The work went about relatively quickly with the occasional question or conversation, and after a few hours they had a clean slate. Now they need only replant, and that work could be saved for tomorrow.

“See?” Newt smiled proudly over the clean little patch of dirt. “Best to build a higher wall if you’d like to keep the streelers out. They won’t be coming about as its grows colder, but just as a precaution, we might consider it.”

Hagrid surveyed his dirtied hands, wet earth staining them a muddy pink, then gazed up at the waiting garden.

“Maybe we could grow some cabbages,” he considered, brushing his palms together, bits of dirt streaming to the ground like Phoenix ash. “I’d like squash in the summertime.”

“That sounds lovely. Perhaps you could find seeds in the village, have anything the school should need, and a patch for yourself as well. Well done, my boy. A hard day’s work deserves a nice cup of tea. It's quite near dinnertime, I’d imagine.” He lifted a filthy, sticky hand to peer at the lowering angle of the sun. 

Hagrid shucked his gloves off inside-out and wrung them between his hands.

“No thank you, Professor. I mean…. Mr. Scamander, sir. We’ve gone a bit late, you see, and there’s something I best be…” His eyes went round. “Well there’s….something I forgot to tend to.”

Newt smirked. He knew the telltale signs of sneaking, but sneaking was harmless, even healthy, now and again.

“Alright, then, Hagrid. I shall see you again tomorrow to check on the grindylows. They’re quite helpful at maintaining the lake, if you can win them over.”

Hagrid nodded and ducked his chin, and was gone, off with Professor Howlett’s gloves and all. 

-

Time had gone a bit longer than he’d estimated, meaning dinner in the Great Hall was half over. He was left to scour the kitchens for the leftovers.

It was something that had happened to him quite often in his school days. Lingering too long on the edges of the forest, or watching the bowtruckles scurry about their wiggentree. At the time, being late to meals got two points per student deducted from house totals. These days it just meant that all the professors had had time to trickle in from their quarters and offices, crowding the head table, making stepping in unnoticed nearly impossible and ensuring awkward conversation that made his head spin just at the thought of it.

But before he had even made his way down the first steps to the kitchens, he could hear the chaos within, shrill screeches and the banging of pans.

He blinked at the heavy wood door, the bedlam inside quieting for a moment before he was bowled over the by a bulk of  _ person  _ bursting from within, pursued by two House Elves, Ellen and Brill.

Ellen, meek and quiet, held a metal spatula out in front of her like a sword, all crouched and ready to spring. Brill clutched an egg beater in two hands overhead, wielding it like a club. “Sneak! Sneak! The half-giant steals our food! The sneak!”

Hagrid righted himself easily, clutching a bucket of something raw and stinking to his chest.

“Mister Scamander!” he yelped, then visibly gulped.

“Hello Hagrid. There you are.” Newt smirked, and nodded helpfully in case Hagrid didn’t readily pick up on his quick thinking. 

He looked down at the House Elves, still threatening to clobber Hagrid with their kitchen utensils. 

“Young Hagrid and I have been tending the garden this afternoon, and lost track of time. Would you allow us, just this once, to treat ourselves to the last servings?”

He peeked over into the bucket. “It seems its only the scraps, at any rate. Just this once? We won’t be a bother again.”

Brill pointed her egg beater. “Nothing else!”

“No, no. That will be all. It won’t happen again. Much appreciated.”

He grabbed Hagrid’s elbow to steer him out of the narrow corridor and ahead of him to the stairs. The boy needed to duck even under the low ceilings. 

“You’ll want to keep on their good side, Hagrid, if you’re planning to raid their stock to feed your creatures. It might do well for you to ask permission first.”

“How’d’ja know it was creatures I’m wanting to feed?” Hagrid said glumly at the top of the stairs, still clutching the bucket and looking as if he might weep into it.

“It was the only place to find meat to treat the jarvey I befriended in my sixth year,” he answered offhanded. “Now where is it your off to, my boy?”

Hagrid’s face turned downwards, shoulders shrugging to his ears. 

“Now I’m not going to say anything to Headmaster Dippet; I only wanted to accompany you.”

Hagrid blinked. “Accompany me, sir?”

“Yes, of course. I’d quite like to see what it is you’ve found that can eat a whole bucket of lamb chops, if you wouldn’t mind.”

-

“He don’t take kindly to strangers.”

“Not to worry,” Newt said, lantern swinging while they traipsed through the undergrowth of the Dark Forest. “I’m used to atypical social situations, especially regarding beasts.”

“Funny,” he went on, peering through the dark willows and the silvery light cast from the moon above. “I frequented this forest during my time here, tending to the Thestrals and whatever sort of creature I was caring for at the time. It's grown differently now, of course. But it's reminiscent of what I remember.”

“You kept creatures? On school grounds?” Hagrid balked.

“Yes. In my trunk. Under my bed. I even had a few fairies trapped in my quill case at one point. Our charms professor didn’t take kindly to them though. At least not when they interrupted his class to hang him by his cloak on the hat stand. Unfortunately short in stature, he was, but my peers considered the sight hilarious all the same.”

He tried to keep his long strides quiet against the brittle forest floor, though it was in vain beside Hagrid’s noisy romping. While he searched ahead for a peek at a unicorn or the leathery whip of a bat’s wings, he missed Hagrid’s warm smile, cheeks gone rosy and round.

“I am glad you took this position, Mr. Scamander. Really I am. I’ve learned a lot from you. Mos’ people...just don’t understand creatures.”

“To my experience...there are no strange creatures, only blinkered people.”

They walked a ways further, before Hagrid stopped and indicated this was the place.

Aragog was already large for his age, slinking from his nest under a great, gnarled tree root, pinchers testing the air, and greeted them with a hissing  _ ‘hhhheeeelloooo hhhhaaagriiiiiidddd…who is this with youuuuu….?’ _

“Mr. Scamander,” said Hagrid, setting down his pail, the wire-formed handle giving a rusty screech. “He’s a friend ‘o mine. A teacher, but he ain’t gonna hurt you, Aragog. He works with creatures. Well, he…” Hagrid glanced back to Newt, already gazing up at the beast with his head cocked, eyes wide, lips parted, cataloging each detail of the overlarge pinchers just above his head.

“I’m a magizoologist, you see,” Newt spoke up. “Hagrid has told me very much about you, Aragog. I’m quite pleased to meet you.”

“ _ meeeeeetttt me? observe me? squeeeeeezeee out a bit of my venom for your ssstttuddddieeees? is that it?” _

The spider’s speech was not much else than words formed from a rumbling hiss, still new and rudimentary. He knew from Hagrid’s stories that the beast was only a few years old, and already as tall as Newt himself, spindly legs spanning about a three-meter diameter, grown all over with coarse hair, eyes like two black Bludgers, unmoving.

“Oh. Quite the opposite,” Newt answered cheerily. “I’ve never encountered an Acromantula before. It is a great honor to meet you, and I’ll not ask nor would I take anything from you which you would not offer. Please, it is fascinating to finally be in the presence of one of your kind.”

“He came to help deliver your meal. Helped me smuggle it out of the kitchens himself, he did,” said Hagrid, brandishing the bucket now, reaching for a raw, fleshy hunk and tossing it skyward. 

The Acromantula’s long, clicking chelicerae caught it, and swallowed the offering whole in one wet gulp.

_ “haaaaggrrriiidddddd….”  _ the spider slurred afterwards, his whispering speech tinged with displeasure.  _ “i am so very looonnneeelllyyyy out here.” _

Newt did not miss the way the creature’s front legs prowled closer towards the toes of his boots, nor did he flinch away.

“I am sorry, friend. Its safer here for you. You’ve gotten too big now to keep in a trunk,” Hagrid attempted. 

His wife had told him plenty of times over of the tone he took when speaking to his creatures, maternal forbearance sewn into every word. He’d denied it, and had certainly never heard it from anyone else, save for three particular individuals, until now, listening to Hagrid’s tone caught between supplication and an attempt to soothe.

_ “it is not the habitat that drives me maaaaaad….. but the lack of companyyyyyy….” _

The spider inched closer still, Newt now eye level with his giant, shining pinchers. Another bit of meat was tossed between them, and the spider sucked it clean from the bone while Newt watched, unaffected.

“Perhaps you are in need of a wife?” he offered easily.

At this the beast’s great, furry orb of a head snapped upwards, leveling black eyes to his face and squinting, leaning closer, as if inspecting.

“ _ a wiiiiiffe you sayyyyyyy….?” _

“Yes, a wife. I have one myself. They're quite agreeable when their temper isn't provoked or...“ Newt gave a shake of his head and chuckled dryly at himself. “Well, at any rate, I've got a contact that might find an egg for us. She could be brought here. Perhaps this would help with fielding your lonesomeness. It certainly helped mine, even when I didn’t quite realize it was lonesomeness I was feeling.”

_ “how loooonnnggggg….?” _

“Certainly it would take a few days for my owl to reach the contact, and we may have to wait for an egg to come into his possession, but I think it would take less time than you think.”

_ “having a companion...would satisfy a great neeeeedddd….perhaps then I would not be so thirsty for ssssstrangerssss…..” _

“Yes, well. Typically when one party proposes a favor on behalf of the other, all intentions of swallowing the benefactor whole become secondary.”

The spider peered impossibly closer, and Newt saw his own face reflected in one shining, whiteless eye.

_ “you are a ssstraaannggeee man, mr. scaaaamandeerrr…” _

Newt blinked, focused steadily on his own image looking back at him. “Yes. It is not the first time someone has said so.”

Not even a beast.

-

“Yes, that’s a good girl. Oh, yes you’ve done marvelously.” Newt stroked at the crown of feathers fanned over the female’s head, leaning to nuzzle his cheek against her smooth beak.

The newborn Hippogriff, a colt, trotted proudly about, stretching rust-colored wings, beating at the crisp morning air.

Tripping and plodding on wobbly knees, the foal eventually sided up to his mother nudging his beak against her belly. 

Hagrid crooned from over Newt’s shoulder. “That’s your Mummy, that is! There’s a smart lad! Mr. Scamander, I would’ve been in a right state without you here. Sorry to have woke you up so early, but I was at my wit’s end!”

“Nothing to worry about,” Newt chimed, watching mother and foal lope off towards the edges of the forest. The mother, or Frieda, as she was called, would assist in this first hunt, and then the nestling would be on its own to find food after that. “I’ve overseen many a Hippogriff hatching. My mother bred fancy Hippogriffs, you see.”

“”I only wish…” murmured Hagrid, and then after a shuddering breath, swiped at a tear with the back of his hand. “I only wish Aragog were that happy…”

Almost immediately, he dissolved into a fit of the deepest, most mournful hiccups Newt had witnessed, shoulders bowing in time with his sobs.

“That’s alright, Hagrid,” New tried haplessly, plucking a handkerchief from the pocket of his trousers he’d hastily pulled himself into when the boy had burst into his quarters earlier that morning.

The offered comfort was dwarfed in Hagrid’s heavy hands, appearing only as a tiny scrap when held between his thumb and forefinger to dab his cheeks. New morning sun spilled over the sprawl of the hill, casting its gold warmth over Hagrid’s figure, setting his slightly outsized pajamas to an even more garish shade of yellow. 

“It is in an Acromantula’s nature to live secluded lives, but not solitary ones. They are quite...defensive creatures. But just because they aren’t necessarily attuned to the emotion we humans have described as ‘joy’ doesn’t mean they can’t live contented lives. It is their way…” 

Hagrid’s bawling had subsided to a noisy sniffle. 

“A companion will… Well, will help to settle things a bit. It is the natural way of things for his kind…”

Hagrid gave a silent nod, gasping for a steadying breath. “Maybe so.”

“It is difficult to imagine our creatures as dissatisfied, I understand. But you musn’t blame yourself, Hagrid…”

“Is no’ that...not all of it anyways…” Hagrid managed, now wringing Newt’s handkerchief around his fingers. “Ever since I was expelled, well… It ain’t set right with me what Aragog’s been forsaken to… All alone in the forest, and all becaus’a me. People’s got a bad taste in their mouths now becaus’a what they think he’s done.”

Newt thought for a moment, debating. It wasn’t just shame at his expulsion or sorrow for Aragog’s situation that had Hagrid worried. 

He blinked back up the boy, the borrowed handkerchief nearly shredded in his worry.

“Sometimes,” he started, searching for his words even as he went, “our lives don’t turn out as we’d expect… And sometimes the ones we love are hurt inadvertently by our mistakes, or the mistakes of others.”

He thought to Leta, how much he had let himself be hurt, let himself carry, and then the sacrifice she had chosen as her own penance. Queenie, her unbridled kindness taken advantage of, her sister hurt so much with regret in the aftermath, and Jacob with his open heart that brought her back to them. Theseus, whose shadow Newt has shied from, and how it had taken a battle threatening all they loved to steer him right. And Tina, now at home and safe and bringing the greatest gift they’d ever know. 

“But if we are careful to mend things,” he went on, voice suddenly thin, “I find that most often, its better than I’d imagined.”

He blinked and cleared his throat, moving to gather up the tools and blankets they’d gathered, strewn over the grass.

-

Tina stepped out of the train car with the elegance of a woman two months from the end of her term, rounder and as lovely as he’d ever seen her. His breath caught in his throat at the sight of her, all waddles and groans at having been cooped up in the train for hours. She was buttoned into a grey wool coat, wound in an indigo scarf, and invitingly warm when she leaned to kiss his cheek.

He gripped her hand with all the fierce homesickness that had been bottled within since autumn, before the ground was laid thickly in white, before the stones of the castle crusted in sparkling frost.

“Whatcha got there?” She pointed to the parcels he cradled in the crook of one arm, just retrieved from the owlery in the Village, signature required. 

Well practiced in fabricating lies on behalf of smuggled creatures, he shook his head. “Important...teacher things,” he said plainly, and though suspicion was writ in her face, she dropped the issue in favor of holding his hand again and letting the long-lost ease they shared slip back into its proper place.

“How are you feeling?” he asked as they reclined in a Thestral-led carriage towards the grounds.

“Fat,” she answered, blasé.

“You’re beautiful, my dear, I assure you.” He stared openly, letting his eyes travel the hill of her belly, the isthmuses of her fingers against it, contrasted against her coat and complementing the pearly paleness of the snow carpeting the land around them.

She threw a knowing smirk. “You missed me.”

“Hmm…” He raised their twined hands to brush his lips over her knuckles. “I absolutely did.”

“It’s Queenie that made me fat. She won’t stop feeding me,” she said half-heartedly.

“You don’t sound too terribly put out,” he teased.

“You‘re awful!” she gasped, swatting playfully at his shoulder.

He helped her to disembark, dusting all remnants of frost and snow from the step and made sure her footing was sure before leading her down. She muttered her thanks while he fetched an apple from his own coat pocket for the Thestral.

Already, Hagrid’s hulking form was silhouetted in the snow, lumbering towards them in his heavy coat of unpolished leather, a pelt of furs swung about his shoulders, looking every inch like a wild grizzly bear.

“Hello there,” Newt said, wiping a slimy hand against the leg of his trousers. “Thank you for meeting us.”

“No pro’lem at all, sir. Come ‘ere then, Henry.” He grasped for the reins looped about the creature’s neck while Tina’s gaze scaled the figure of the half-giant before her as if she were gazing up at a New York City skyscraper.

“You must be Hagrid,” she acknowledged, just a hint of disbelief lacing her pleasantries.

“Yes mam. Right nice to have you with us for the holidays, missus.”

Tina grinned, both charmed and amused. “Well, thank you for having me.”

“Would you join us for tea, Hagrid?” Newt asked.

Hagrid’s warm eyes widened. “Right honored I’d be, sir. Delighted, even. I’ve got bed down this brute and I’ll be right there.”

“Splendid.”

Hagrid had already turned and made his path for the forest where the Thestrals dwelled, but turned over one shoulder, causing Henry to huff and groan impatiently beside him.

“That is…Where will we be taking tea, sir?” 

Tina made no move to hide her happy smirk.

“My office, Hagrid. We’ll just go and warm the pot, and wait for you to join us.”

Hagrid made another show of thanking him and exchanging pleasantries with Tina before scurrying—more aptly described as lumbering—off, Thestral lopping behind on its bone-like legs.

-

He locked the parcels away in his bottommost desk drawer, tucking the key beneath his gradebook.

“This is homey,” she said honestly, chipper, looking about the room as he set a warming charm to the kettle.

She shuffled to his bookcase, searching and admiring. He watched out of the corner of his eyes while he unpackaged a tin of biscuits, paper wrappings rustling. Her fingers traced the spine of a single copy of a familiar red book, tucked shyly at the edge of a lower shelf.

“You wouldn’t say that if you were a misbehaving student asked to do lines during your free period.”

He stepped to her at the bookcase, watching and noting which titles her warm eyes set upon. The wide window behind his desk set a cool glow about the room, off the frosted landscape outside, and the pink glow in her cheeks was undeniable in this light.

“But you don’t have many of those, do you? You aren’t a strict Professor…are you?” Her voice dropped an octave, a cheeky grin tugging at her lips.

“Careful, now. We can’t get too carried away,” he said, reminding her of the overzealous guest that was sure to bumble in at any minute.

“Later then,” she ceded, leaning to give him a quick peck and turning to pull a seat for herself at the table, where the pot was hopping about on its woven trivet, anxious to be filled. He lifted the lid, gave the crockery a tap and a whispered ‘ _ aguamenti’  _ just as the door creaked open and a dark, snow-speckled crop of hair poked through.

“Come in, Hagrid,” he greeted merrily, tucking into a spot beside his wife. “Not much of a spread I’m afraid, but it’ll do. After all, the company is the most important thing about tea time, anyways.”

Hagrid knocked about for a moment or two, scraping his chair along the stone floors when he sat, banged his knees against the edge of the table, sending the cups rattling on their saucers and the teapot turning its spout towards him, affronted.

“Right you are, sir, and honored I am to be sittin’ here with you, and your wife. No professor ever  _ ever  _ asked me to tea. Mostly if I had to come to their office it was for detentions.”

Tina grinned over the rim of her teacup.

“Newt told me that your affinity for creatures almost beats his own,” she said after a beat of unassuming silence while Newt poured for their guest first, then himself. “He says you’ve got a very gentle hand.”

Hagrid’s ears went instantly pink. “Yes, mam. I mean, that is...Thank you, mam.”

Newt gave a dry chuckle. “It's true. You have quite a way with the creatures. You treat them with patience and yet ask their respect in return. This is the quality of a true leader.”

“Oh I don’ know about that. I ain’t never led nothin’ ‘cept the Hippogriffs to their watering hole.” Hagrid had gone so red, it was fearful that he might burst at any moment.

“Leadership isn’t always seen in the ways we expect,” Tina remarked, nibbling at a biscuit. “I know you’ve been a real help to my husband during his time here. Wrangling him in is worse than keeping up with a Niffler, sometimes.”

The three of them, even Newt, gave a chorus of laughter, and the teapot, charmed to refill itself in the presence of happy company, kept itself full and steaming until well after noon.

-

Christmas morning came with a cold, hard frost, but no less joyful or rare or reverent, as Christmases tended to be. The castle was kept cheerfully warm, a fire burning in every grate, constant and with no need to be stoked.

The little window over his bed cast Tina in cool relief while she still slept, one hand shoved under her pillow, the other resting against the swell of her belly, over the Jobberknoll-blue flannel of her nightgown. He let himself smile down at her for a few stolen moments, and he leaned to press a kiss into her tousled hair before winding himself into his scarf and setting out on his first errand.

Hagrid’s hut was set at the far end of the grounds, over the bridge and down a slope of hill, nestled into the tree line. Newt could not recall it having been there during his school days, though it seemed as if it always had been. It was a humble little house with a hastily-shingled roof the shape of a witch’s hat, with walls of stone that made it look not unlike an over-large, free-standing chimney.

From the front steps, he could hear the likeness of the rumbling of thunder from a distance: the half-giant’s distinctive snoring from behind the weathered wood of the door.

Newt smiled to himself, and tugged two paper-wrapped packages from his coat’s inner pockets. One was slim and rectangular, and familiar shape that fit too nicely, too weightily in his hand. He bent to place it at the edge of the stair. The other, harder, square and carefully,  _ meticulously _ packaged went atop it, and he lingered to give it a little pat before giving one last look to the quaint little hut and listening at the rumblings within.

-

“Good morning,” his wife mumbled, one dark eye blinking open as she sat to give a languid stretch while he divested himself of his coat at the threshold.

“Happy Christmas,” he whispered, stepping close to kiss her. 

In her palm, he deposited one fat, smooth-skinned orange. “Nicked it myself. Only a moment ago, in the kitchens. Brought tea, too. And coffee.” 

“Hmm. Ooh your hands are freezing. Where were you?”

His scarf, weighted with their Christmas bounty, thunked against the little table by the fire. “Oh, only paying a neighborly visit. Said neighbor, however, was still asleep. Unfortunately.”

She smiled and stood, smoothing a hand around her bump, shuffling towards him in socked feet, striped blue and cranberry.

“What did you give him?” she asked knowingly, letting him brush calloused hands over her shoulders, her arms, to grasp her hands. 

“Two presents I hope will serve him well,” he said simply, and leaned to peck her cheek before gesturing for her to sit and unwrapping their simple feast.

-

_ Hagrid, _

_ Please find enclosed a very fragile, very near hatching, Acromantula egg. A freezing charm has been set upon it to keep it in stasis for traveling. You need only give her a few days in a cool, dark environment to make her comfortable enough for hatching. You’ve already been through the process once before, so I trust you’re fully capable of nursing her until she becomes independent, and then she will certainly want to assimilate with her own kind.  _

_ All the best, Newt _

The boy swiped at his cheek with the back of one heavy hand before folding the note with careful fingers and setting it aside.

A kneazle kitten—one of Taffeta’s new litter—wedged itself a warm place between the overlarge armchair and Hagrid’s side, settling down with a weary snore. He took virtually no mind, now untying the ordinary twine and pushing aside the plain brown shop paper to reveal a small but sturdy latched wooden crate.

He would make a place for her after his breakfast; a few handfuls of snow in his stew pot might do the trick to make her comfortable enough.

He set the box at his feet and retrieved the other package, small but familiar in its shape. He plucked gingerly at one corner, peeling the paper aside. One peek at the ruby red buckram binding, the gold filigree stamped into the corners, and he knew. The rest of the wrappings went chucked over his shoulder in his haste, and he blinked, stunned and besotted, at the book between his hands.

A first edition.

He felt as if he’d cry all over again.

Just to be sure, he tipped back the cover to the title page, finding the crisp black ink on new white pages, affirming that this was not in fact a mistake.

Beneath the title, in the large white space above the author’s name, spidery script just the same as had appeared on the other note, was swathed along the page.

_ For a young man with all the dignity, bravery, and righteousness of a true Gryffindor. May this book serve him well for many years, and may he always remember tenderness does not count us as powerless, a bad mistake does not preclude an abundant future, and leaders are not those who speak loudest. _

The kneazle purred from its cozy spot as another leapt up to join it. Hagrid patted each of their tiny heads in turn, let them paw at the leg of his trousers and butt against his palm when he pulled his hand away.

He smiled fondly at them, if a little wobbly and watery.

“I think he’ll make a fine father, that Mister Scamander,” he said aloud, to no one but the kittens, heedless of the little tickle that pitched his voice when he did.

  
  



End file.
